


before we get to heaven, baby, let's give 'em hell

by gravinnen



Series: can you hear that hopeful heart [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4535907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravinnen/pseuds/gravinnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has a great butt and Ronan doesn't care at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before we get to heaven, baby, let's give 'em hell

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is the second part of this series - the first one was from adam's point of view and this one is ronan's take on it all. it's not necessary to read the first part but it does make some things clear, I think.

The thing about being carelessly cruel to people the way Ronan is, is that it usually means that they try even harder to get Ronan to like them. People enjoy being the exception to the rule, enjoy believing that they, for some reason, are special, _different_ and they all want to be the one to make him see the light. He catches Blue doing it sometimes, frowning after he’s said something mean to her or looking out of the corner of her eye to check if he’s heard her make a joke, to see if he’ll laugh. Gansey does it too, often, allowing Ronan to go over his limits again and again, gifting him nothing but stern looks and a shrug of his shoulder, desperately trying to keep the peace.  
  
The only who never really tries is Adam. He’s not exactly mean to Ronan but he also doesn’t go out of his way to to be nice to him, mostly because he doesn’t deserve it. He’s never looking over his shoulder to see if Ronan’s still keeping up. Ronan figures he’s probably just messed up enough to have that be the reason to like Adam so much.  
  
That’s not the only reason for his crush, though. It’s also because Adam has a cute butt, which Ronan would admit to Adam. And because the way Adam looks when he’s laughing makes Ronan’s heart beat twice as fast, which he’ll never admit to anyone ever. Adam laughs without making a sound, crawling into himself as if he’s almost embarrassed and usually this would annoy Ronan - go big or go home, right - but for some reason it just makes him like Adam even more.  
  
This used to make him feel like smashing his fist against the wall but something’s changing.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“What do all those bottles in the bathroom mean?” Ronan says as he walks out of the bathroom that’s also a kitchen. He’s holding a small, blue container that has something about shea butter and aloe vera written on it. He waves it in front of him. Gansey looks up at Ronan from where he’s sitting in between Noah and his paper Henrietta.  
  
“Yes, yes, the rumors are true.” He lifts both of his hands in the air and looks almost embarrassed. “I’ve been scrubbing a lot lately.” A pause. “As in, my face - not the kitchen floors.”  
  
“Oooh.” Noah says enthusiastically as Ronan sits down next to Adam, their legs brushing. “I did notice your skin looking even silkier lately.”  
  
“Did you?” Gansey says sadly. “I was hoping it would make me look manlier. The guy in the commercial looked so rugged.”  
  
“You wanted to look manlier and you thought scrub would be the answer?”  
  
“Well, excuse me, Lynch but we can’t all have a pet raven called Chainsaw permanently perched on our muscled shoulders as a metaphor for our - _penis_.” Gansey whispers the last word.  
  
“Right.” Ronan cracks his knuckles. “You can just say penis, you know.”  
  
“Ronan.”  
  
“Penis.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“Penis.”  
  
“Stop.”  
  
“Penis.” Noah adds gleefully.  
  
“I beg of you.”  
  
Ronan kicks at Adam’s toes with his foot and trades his secret smile with Adam’s. It makes him feel electric and that annoys him slightly. He’d like to set fire to something, but maybe this time, not to ruin something but just to warm his hands.  
  
Later, when Adam is shrugging on his jacket that has a hole just near the zipper to make the short trip back to the church, he grabs Gansey by the shoulder, puts his mouth close to Gansey’s ear and whispers seductively, “Penis.”  
  
“Ack.” Gansey groans, pawing at Adam in a way that makes him look like just a boy. Ronan cackles. “I hate it when you two band together, it’s disturbing. Where do you two always go on your secret dates anyway?”  
  
Suddenly, things turn a little weird. It feels like something has changed but he’s not sure if it’s real or just his imagination. Gansey touches his lip with his thumb and Ronan waits for Adam to become awkward and restless and deny it but he just bumps his hip against Ronan’s, says, “To the only place where Gansey the third isn’t invited and we are. Later.” And walks out of the door.  
  
Ronan is head over heels.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Ronan’s been wearing more color lately. He bought a green hoodie that’s even softer on the inside than on the outside the other day and before that, a navy tank top that almost matches his eyes. He’s reading a book about two boys in love and it’s not terrifying him anymore. Sometimes when he’s read a chapter it makes him almost curious for the future.  
  
Yesterday, Gansey had asked Blue over and five minutes in, they’d been knee-deep in a fight about Gansey saying he liked her even better without any make-up on. “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t get up every morning thinking about how to please _you_ ,” she’d said as Gansey had discretely tried to move a sock underneath his bed with his foot and Ronan had agreed with her but it still made him kind of happy that he’d probably never have to worry about either of those things.  
  
It’s a feeling he’s not used to.  
  
“It’s still not working.” Adam says. He’s on his knees in front of the printer in Ronan’s room, pressing buttons and untangling cords. “Why is it not working?”  
  
Ronan shrugs, tries to think about what he could try to fix the printer that Adam hasn’t already tried but doesn’t get up from the bed he’s sitting on.  
  
“I need to hand this in tomorrow. Can’t you dream me up a new one?”  
  
“Of all the things I could dream you and you pick something that we can literally buy right now in a store.”  
  
“Well, you know me.”  
  
“You have a problem.”  
  
“Definitely.”  
  
“A serious problem.”  
  
“Probably.” Adam plugs something into something else. “I’d like a plane, I guess.”  
  
“I could dream you a plane.” Ronan’s feeling bold. The kind of bold that makes him get in his car at two in the morning.  
  
“I have literally zero doubt that you could.” Adam says, and coming out of his mouth it sounds like a compliment.  
  
“Where would you go?”  
  
“If you dreamed me a plane?” Adam smashes his hand against the printer and a red light turns on. It turns green. “Italy seems nice. France, maybe.”  
  
“I’ve been to France.” He doesn’t say it to boast or to show off. He hopes Adam knows it means _I want to take you there_.  
  
Adam lifts his hand in the air in silent victory as the printer starts spewing out page after page of a no doubt brilliant deconstruction of the male lead from a book Ronan will never read. The tips of his fingers are tingling.  
  
Adam sits next to him and presses the paper against his own face.  
  
“It’s still warm. Wanna feel?”   
  
“Sure.”  
  
Adam’s mouth is very close and he thinks about kissing.  
  
Contrary to popular belief Ronan has in fact made out with a guy before. He generally doesn’t believe in kissing someone that he hasn’t at least liked for fifteen months already but he’d needed to know, he’d needed to be sure. The guy was called something lame like Dox or Dex or bag of Dicks and it hadn’t been great but it had been enough for him to realize that yes, this was what he wanted. It hadn’t felt like waking up exactly but it had felt like a big step forward.  
  
Kissing Adam is something he has dreams about approximately four times a week and nightmares about approximately three times a week so it used to make him feel both upset and relieved back when he was fairly sure Adam didn’t like him back. But lately he’s not as convinced anymore. Adam sometimes looks at him in a way that makes Ronan feel like everything is possible and he’s been knocking his knees against Ronan’s knees more than usual.  
  
Lately, he feels like he’s always on edge.  
  
“I have to go to work.” Adam gets up, puts the paper in his bag. “See you tomorrow.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Ronan sometimes wonders if there’s someone that really knows him. He wonders if anyone really knows anyone. He wonders if he wants someone to.  
  
A few days ago, Gansey had asked him quite sadly about how Ronan could always be so sure about himself, the decisions he makes. Ronan had known that Gansey was thinking about Blue while asking the question and so he hadn’t told him that he makes pretty much all of his choices with the help of an online decision maker that gives him either a yes or a no. Blue sometimes asks him how he can be so endlessly mean without a care in the world and he doesn’t tell her that sometimes, the conversations he’s had with her or with anyone really, play over and over in his head until he can’t stand it anymore.  
  
Adam never really asks him anything, except if he wants to feel the still-warm paper from the printer against his cheek. Ronan’s starting to become pretty sure that at least, Adam’s not in love with Blue anymore. The other day he’d complimented Ronan on his green hoodie and had allowed Ronan to hide his toes underneath Adam’s leg. Ronan has never really flirted with anyone before - Dux had been way too eager and Ronan hadn’t even had to try - but now, with Adam, he’s almost starting to enjoy it. He knows he’s not bad-looking, that he can be funny if he wants to and that he has quite good taste in movies. He’s thinking that maybe, Adam is starting to see this too and he doesn’t think he’ll ever make the first move, that for now, their arms touching and their thoughts matching is enough but he’s ready for when it happens.  
  
If it happens.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
It’s only after they've kissed that Ronan realizes it - he made out with Adam on top of his BMW. Ronan couldn’t dream that up even if he tried. They’re in Adam’s room - Adam asleep next to him - and Ronan punches the air. It feels like the right thing to do.  
  
“What was that?” Adam mumbles into his pillow.  
  
“Stretching.” Ronan improvises. “I thought you were asleep.”  
  
“I wasn’t.”  
  
“No fucking shit.”  
  
“There are more swearwords in that sentence than real words.”  
  
“No fucking shit.”  
  
Adam gets up just a little and leans on his elbows. He kisses Ronan and it feels nothing like it had felt when he’d made out with Dax. This is everything and he’s never felt so sure about himself in his entire life. Ronan puts his hand under the waistband of Adam’s pajama bottoms. Adam allows it, puts his own hand underneath Ronan’s shirt and he wouldn’t say that his entire body is on fire but it does feel as if things are suddenly very, very simple. He wishes there was music playing.  
  
“My lips are bruised, I think.” Adam says after a while. He leans his forehead against Ronan’s shoulder and breathes out. They’re both very hard.  
  
“You have a nice butt, Parrish.” Ronan mutters. “I’m gonna - I’m just gonna go to the toilet.”  
  
“Okay.” He briefly looks at himself in the mirror and he barely recognizes himself. His eyes are wide in a way they haven’t been for a long time. He comes in barely a minute and thinks about Adam and cars.  
  
“I have to go too.” Adam says as Ronan walks back into the room. He’s swaying on his feet.  
  
Adam’s cheeks are flushed when he comes back from the bathroom and Ronan wonders if both of them thought about the other. He thinks that would be really, really, insanely hot.  
  
“This is weird.” Adam switches off the light and falls down next to him on the bed. “Is this weird?”  
  
“I don’t know. Is it?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“It’s kind of weird, I guess.” Ronan’s very glad it’s dark in the room. “I’ve wanted this for a really long time.”  
  
“Yeah. I know.”  
  
“Did you - want it, I mean?”  
  
“Not for as long as you did, I think, but yeah.”  
  
Ronan swears there are no butterflies in his stomach. He coughs. “I’m going to sleep, wake me up if I bring back something weird.”  
  
“Sure.” Adam hesitates, then almost asks, “See you tomorrow?”  
  
“See you tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> will I ever write about anything else but Ronan learning to like himself? no. title is from die fun by kacey musgraves.


End file.
